Mr Milestone. This, you perceive, is the natural state of one part of the grounds.  Here is a wood, never yet touched by the finger of taste; thick, intricate, and gloomy.  Here is a little stream, dashing from stone to stone, and overshadowed with these untrimmed boughs.

Miss Tenorina. The sweet romantic spot!  How beautifully the birds must sing there on a summer evening!

Miss Graziosa. Dear sister! how can you endure the horrid thicket?

Mr Milestone. You are right, Miss Graziosa:  your taste is correct—­perfectly en regle.  Now, here is the same place corrected—­trimmed—­polished —­decorated—­adorned.  Here sweeps a plantation, in that beautiful regular curve:  there winds a gravel walk:  here are parts of the old wood, left in these majestic circular clumps, disposed at equal distances with wonderful symmetry:  there are some single shrubs scattered in elegant profusion:  here a Portugal laurel, there a juniper; here a laurustinus, there a spruce fir; here a larch, there a lilac; here a rhododendron, there an arbutus.  The stream, you see, is become a canal:  the banks are perfectly smooth and green, sloping to the water’s edge:  and there is Lord Littlebrain, rowing in an elegant boat.

Squire Headlong. Magical, faith!

Mr Milestone. Here is another part of the grounds in its natural state.  Here is a large rock, with the mountain-ash rooted in its fissures, overgrown, as you see, with ivy and moss; and from this part of it bursts a little fountain, that runs bubbling down its rugged sides.

Miss Tenorina. O how beautiful!  How I should love the melody of that miniature cascade!

Mr Milestone. Beautiful, Miss Tenorina!  Hideous.  Base, common, and popular.  Such a thing as you may see anywhere, in wild and mountainous districts.  Now, observe the metamorphosis.  Here is the same rock, cut into the shape of a giant.  In one hand he holds a horn, through which that little fountain is thrown to a prodigious elevation.  In the other is a ponderous stone, so exactly balanced as to be apparently ready to fall on the head of any person who may happen to be beneath[6.1]:  and there is Lord Littlebrain walking under it.

Squire Headlong. Miraculous, by Mahomet!

Mr Milestone. This is the summit of a hill, covered, as you perceive, with wood, and with those mossy stones scattered at random under the trees.

Miss Tenorina. What a delightful spot to read in, on a summer’s day!  The air must be so pure, and the wind must sound so divinely in the tops of those old pines!

Mr Milestone. Bad taste, Miss Tenorina.  Bad taste, I assure you.  Here is the spot improved.  The trees are cut down:  the stones are cleared away:  this is an octagonal pavilion, exactly on the centre of the summit:  and there you see Lord Littlebrain, on the top of the pavilion, enjoying the prospect with a telescope.